Guns in Parks: The Hoplophobes' Travel Guide to the
United States

Last week, President Obama signed a bill which,
besides changing credit card laws, says that in National Parks and National
Wildlife Refuges, the laws about gun carrying will be the same as in the
host state. So in Colorado, for example, you will be allowed to carry a
concealed handgun in Rocky Mountain National Park, if you have a
state-issued concealed carry permit. In Vermont's Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller
National Historical Park, you can carry at will, since no permit is required
for carry in the rest of Vermont. In New Jersey' Gateway National Recreation
Area, you will need a permit, and since almost no-one in New Jersey except
retired police is ever granted a permit, almost no-one will be able to carry
there.

The law goes into effect nine months hence, as do the
changes in credit card laws.

I was one of seven authors whom the New York
Times invited to contribute a short essay on the new law, for the
Times' on-line opinion feature, Room for Debate. All seven essays, from
diverse pro/con viewpoints, were pretty good, I thought. The comments from
readers, however, were voluminous but often very weak. Many of them
consisted of left-over talking points from the gun control debate circa
1971, with assertions that no serious scholar of the gun issue believes. For
example, many commenters claimed that it is impossible to use a gun in
self-defense, because the attacker (whether a human or an animal) will have
the element of surprise, that ordinary people are not competent to use guns
for protection, and so on. Yet even the strongest scholarly advocates of gun
control acknowledge that there are about
a hundred thousand defensive gun uses annually, according to the
National Crime Victimization Survey, which is conducted by the Census Bureau
and the United State Department of Justice. (Other scholars argue for higher
figures, but the key point is that no informed scholar claims that
successful defensive use is rare or non-existent.)

Surprisingly, some of the commenters showed signs of
mental illness. One commenter wrote that if he saw someone in a National
Park with a gun, he would report the person for making criminal threats. ("Well,
watch out, gunnut gunwack gunsels. If I see your gun while I am visiting
the parks, I will file a complaint accusing you of threatening me.")

Now perhaps that commenter himself is just an
ordinary criminal, and for many years has been breaking the law by making
false accusations against innocent people. On the other hand, the commenter
might not have been intending to make a knowingly false report, but instead
to have been accurately predicted what he, with complete sincerity, would
do. A person's belief, without a sufficient basis, that other people are
committing crimes against him, is a symptom of
Paranoid Personality Disorder.

The more common form of apparent mental illness among
some commenters was
Hoplophobia, which is described in the book Contemporary Diagnosis
and Management of Anxiety Disorders. A word of explanation: having a
strong dislike or hatred of something is not, in itself, an indication of
mental illness. For example, a person hates frogs, considers them
disgusting, tries to avoid looking at frogs or touching them, and writes
letters to the editor urging that all frogs be exterminated. This is not per
se a sign of mental illness. Poor judgment, perhaps, but not a mental
disorder.

So the vast majority of people who hate frogs,
snakes, spiders, dogs, cats, guns, animals, George Bush, or anything else
are not mentally ill.

Something becomes a
Specific Phobia, clinically speaking, when it significantly interferes
with ordinary life activities. For example, "I turned down a job offer as a
ticket-taker at the Natural History Museum, because I am afraid if I might
see a child carrying a plush frog toy that was purchased in the museum gift
shop." Or, "I refuse to visit my son who is a chef in a French restaurant,
because I know that he has handled frog legs, and I terrified that he might
shake my hand."

Among the New York Times commenters, there
were plenty of gun haters, the large majority of whom exhibited no sign of
mental illness. Yet several of them wrote that they often visit national
parks, enjoyed the visits, but now, because of the new federal law, they
would not set foot in a National Park.

Now, as my Times essay had explained, and
other commenters had reiterated, the new federal law simply means that the
rule inside federal parks will be the same as in the host state. So the odds
of running into a person legally carrying a firearm at, say, the Johnstown
Flood National Memorial in Pennsylvania would be pretty close to the odds
running into a legally armed person while walking down the streets of
Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

In other words, someone who avoids National Parks
because of the new law is saying that he is afraid of being in place where
most of the adult population has the legal right to carry a firearm, after
licensing, a background check, and safety training. Meaning, of course, 40
of our 50 states.

Having so much hatred, or fear, of guns that you
can't handle the ordinary, daily conditions of 4/5 of the American states
would imply a rather significant interference with ordinary activities. That
is, a phobia. The specific name for this phobia is "Hoplophobia." Although
Hoplophobia would be a good name for fear of hopping animals such as frogs
and kangaroos, the word's root is "hoplon"—from
an ancient Greek shield that could be used offensively or defensively.

A caveat on the diagnosis:
The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders includes, as part of the diagnosis for a phobia, that
"The person recognizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable. Note: In
children, this feature may be absent." That condition is not met by the
New York Times commenters, who appear to see themselves as eminently
reasonable, and to consider anyone who would carry a firearm for protection
as self-evidently crazy and dangerous. I don't think that the diagnosis of a
phobia should require insight on the part of the phobic. If a person won't
go to public places because he is afraid of balloons, then he would have a
phobia, even if he considered himself eminently rational, and could recite
statistics about all the people who have been seriously injured by balloons.
(As was one of my relatives, when a Mylar balloon in a department store
popped, and left her blind in one eye.)

Generally speaking, a mentally ill person has a
better chance of being cured if he wants to be cured, and so the first step
towards mental health is recognizing that one is mentally ill. So in the
interest of perhaps encouraging some Hoplophobes to admit that they have a
problem, here is a travel guide to the United States, based on the
presumption that a person refuses to go any place where most adults can
lawfully carry firearms for protection.

For convenience's sake, let's presume that the victim
of Hoplophobia lives in Manhattan. Of course most people in Manhattan,
including most Manhattanites who hate guns, are not Hoplophobes. But the
island is a place to which Hoplophobes often migrate, perhaps as a form of
self-treatment, trying to place themselves in a place where their phobia is
less likely be triggered.

So starting in Manhattan, you can enjoy the entire
Empire State, a large and interesting place. If you feel a desire to leave
New York, be extremely careful about heading east. Going into Connecticut
will immediately put you in a place where the government routinely issues
carry permits to law-abiding, trained adults. In other words, Connecticut is
just as dangerous as a National Park.

Vermont is even worse, with no permits even required
for carrying concealed handguns. And everyone knows how dangerous Vermont
is. New Hampshire and Maine are similar to Connecticut, and must be avoided.

Massachusetts is safe, as long as you cross directly
into the state, without going through Connecticut. Rhode Island is good too,
providing that you approach it via Massachusetts, or take a ferry from
eastern Long Island. A trip through Connecticut would obviously be too
risky.

New Jersey is the Hoplophobe's Garden State. Its
licensing practices are much more severe than New York City's. In New
Jersey, not even diamond merchants or celebrities can get carry permits.

From New Jersey, you must go south to Delaware. Do
not even think of crossing into Pennsylvania. It is a Shall Issue state for
carry licenses, similar to Maine or New Hampshire.

Maryland is also safe, and from there you can go to
the District of Columbia, whose very strict gun laws have made it
notoriously safe.

If you want to fly to D.C., take a plane to the
Baltimore airport, and then rent a car or take a bus. Do not fly to either
of the D.C. airports. They are both located in Virginia, and the danger that
you could be shot by a gun-crazy Virginian while traveling through Virginia
into D.C. is nearly as high as the odds that you will get shot by a gun nut
while in a National Park. Stay away from Arlington National Cemetery; it is
in Virginia, and the people buried there were gun users.

Needless to say, the entire Southeast is off limits.
So is almost everything from Pennsylvania west. It is OK to fly to Illinois,
and enjoy that state, since it does not even have procedures for issuing
carry permits. The South Side of Chicago is an especially safe place to go,
thanks to the handgun ban in the city.

Like Illinois, Wisconsin has no provision for handgun
carry licenses, and so was safe
until 2005, when the state Supreme Court ruled that people had a
constitutional right to keep and carry guns in their place of business.
After that, you could still go to Wisconsin, as long as you never entered a
place of business. But now, the state
Attorney General has advised that people have a right to open carry
without a permit, and thus the Badger State is far too dangerous to
contemplate a visit.

So is all the rest of the Midwest. So are all the
Rocky Mountain states. So is the entire Southwest.

The Pacific Coast is mixed. Washington and Oregon are
Shall Issue states. Alaska allows carry without a permit, and besides that,
the mere thought of Sarah Palin can trigger anxiety attacks in Hoplophobes.

California is safe, except for some of the rural
counties, where sheriffs issue permits to law-abiding citizens. Permits are
close to non-existent in Los Angeles, making South Central L.A. an
especially safe area for the Hoplophobe.

Permits are also hard to get in Hawaii. So you can
visit Haleakala National Park without worrying that someone on the trail up
the volcano may have a gun.

In addition, New York's airports are gateways to the
world, and you can travel to many global locations which are even stricter
than New York City in their restrictions on gun ownership. You may find
Cuba, Darfur, and North Korea to be especially pleasant places.

David B. Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute, in
Golden, Colorado.

Make a donation to support Dave Kopel's work in defense of constitutional
rights and public safety.

Nothing written here is to be construed as
necessarily representing the views of the Independence Institute or as an
attempt to influence any election or legislative action. Please send
comments to Independence Institute, 727 East 16th Ave., Denver, Colorado 80203 Phone 303-279-6536. (email)webmngr @ i2i.org